The plastic
frame has various flanges and stuff that cause gaps in the stack.
This is BAAAD, too much chance of damage or pressure marks on the
lcd, plus there’s the whole pressure variations problem, and
the apparent dropouts due to thickness. Sooo its test time
again.

Here’s the stack sans frame. The tryout
shows a nice smooth line, then it starts breaking up,
then its all good, then its bad

WHA?

Then out of the corner of my eye I spot
the drive light flashing on my laptop. Light goes on - line goes
off, light goes off - line comes back.

That’s IT? THAT’S the DAMN
PROBLEM?, Either not enough memory or more likely some damn
background task flipping the disk and stealing resources. I was
getting wigged over some windows problem? HA. What a dork.
Looks like I’ll have to do a stripped-down desktop to run it
from, (or not use my lappy).

I’m going to proceed with the ‘original backlight’
plan, (it means I’ve got to find 3mm from somewhere but no
worries), in which case I’ve got to replace the busted lamp.

With the “spend as little as
possible” thing in mind I’ve scavenged a lamp from a
broken 17” screen at work. It’s wider than the 15”
lamp having two tubes rather than one. Obviously it produces
much more heat than the tube it’s replacing, and also and
won’t fit nicely alongside the thinner acrylic slab in the
15” backlight. To get round this I split the pair. I also
get rid of the metal backing at the same time.

Peel back the metal backing at each
end, It’s quite easy to bend with a thumbnail. Peel off the
tape from the back, unhook the wires through the slits
thoughtfully provided by the manufacturer. The plastic blocks
holding the ends of the lamps drop out from the steel channel.
These blocks joining the lamps are quite soft and cut easily.
Splitting the heatshrink covered cable is a pain but Mr Scalpel
wins out in the end, being very careful not to nick the
insulation.

I use the plastic case moulding from
the smaller lamp with a chunk cut out of the end to acommodate the
longer tube. I’ll put up with the bit sticking out of
the end. I cut the wire from the old lamp and splice the
cables together. Check it still works with the inverter. Oh
yes.

I think it’s worth noting at
this point that apart from the screwdrivers that cheap disposable
scalpel has been the most used tool so far.

I’ve
a feeling Mr Dremel is getting jealous, but he’ll get his
fun soon enough. It’s time to start thinking in more detail
about how everything is going to fit together.